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rattiestthatuknow t1_jd88ifx wrote

Weston resident here so here are random unorganized thoughts.

This article is stupid and poorly researched. Weston has 3 MBTA stops, the MBTA only stops at 1.

Also have fun getting dropped at that stop. Walk a mile to “downtown” Weston or walk a mile to Waltham Market Basket (love that plaza) where the sidewalk doesn’t even connect. There’s no bus that stops there either.

There is free parking at that site which is rare in the area. No mention of Lincoln where you pay is weird…

There is town owned land by the stop but it is rented to a business right now. Maybe that goes away?

Weston is struggling for affordable elderly housing. Already and has been looking for years to find a solution. The town owns VERY little land which is a problem for the fire department who needs at least 1 new station. More if you want to put larger buildings here.

There is over 1,800 acres of conservation land in Weston. Quick math days Weston has 11,000 acres of land so that’s 16%!

The tree huggers are making it challenging to change out the 3 water towers because they are on conservation land, so good luck getting that changed.

So do you want to protect the “wetlands” or allow more places for housing?

Also article doesn’t mention other 40B project in town that ARE happening. 40B is stupid. They don’t make as many of the unit be “affordable” as they should. It should be 50% not like fucking 5%.

I don’t know what the answer is, but as someone who is slightly involved in the local government (committee that relates to my profession, but certainly not this), I don’t think the state will do a better job than any other town will.

Don’t they run the MBTA? That thing is a fuckshow

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tjrileywisc t1_jd9ml7a wrote

Requiring high percentages of affordable units in an inclusionary zoning policy, or a 40B development is a recipe for making them uneconomical for developers (this is why there are limits on this in the MBTA law).

Edit: I think they've also considered certain types of protected land in the worksheet and GIS layers they put out to assist local governments to determine zoning that works:

https://www.mass.gov/info-details/compliance-model-components

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